


Love is poison

by indoissetep



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, FN-2187 - Freeform, Freeform, M/M, Stormpilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 10:45:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6076377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indoissetep/pseuds/indoissetep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what FN-2187 knows: love is poison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is poison

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I wanted to write something completely different from my usual style. Not sure how it turned out.
> 
> I tagged this as Stormpilot because that's what I had in mind while writing, but I kept things pretty vague, so you could read it as anything really.

This is what FN-2187 has learned: order, orders, Order. His world all swallowing blacks, bloodless whites, and icy chrome. Unity through conformity and sameness, obedience without question. Repetition to the point where it numbs the mind and the senses. Blessedly, for making yourself numb is the only way to survive. Automated motions with no emotion behind them. Emotion is poison.

This is what FN-2187 fears: that the poison is already in him. Coursing through his veins with every pump of his heart, unstopable and corroding. It eats away at his resolve, at his composure, at his loyalty to what he knows – should know, must know – is right. It clings to him like quicksilver, wet and dense and impossibly heavy. It weighs him down, slows him down, makes him fall short of the soldier they all insist he can be. If he would just stop feeling.

This is what FN-2187 knows: desperate fumbling touches, hidden away in dark corners and cramped storage rooms. He knows need that is all parts hunger and no parts love. He knows kisses that are mostly clattering teeth, and touches that bruise and take and take and never, ever give. He knows the rush and hurry that come from the fear of being discovered, of the harsh, swift punishment that will certainly follow. Motions devoid of emotion. There is no love to be extracted from these touches, only temporary release.

FN-2187 knows no loving touches. Knows no love at all, except the one that grows, unbidden, and untended, and unwelcome inside his chest. A stunted, neglected thing, starved for light and warmth. A thing that he starves, burying it deep and hoping, hoping that it won’t show through in his motions or creep into his waking thoughts. This is a weed-like love, equal parts empathy and compassion and he doesn’t know how much passion, and it grows ever outward.

This is what FN-2187 has built: a shell, a shield. Whether it shields what is inside him from the world, or the world from what is inside him, he doesn’t know. It has grown in layers, like rings in a tree, absorbing metal from its surroundings, incorporating it into its makeup. Fed on iron-enriched protein meals, soaking up stinging, cold, purified air, illuminated by precise artificial lights. What was once skin has turned to glass, bones to durasteel, everything in his chest to gears and pistons and so much electric wiring. Except for that small persistent weed, the only part of him that feels alive.

The only part of him that knows – that still remembers – how to love.

This is what FN-2187 knows: love is poison. One must not love the First Order, nor must one hate the scum that stands against it, for both love and hate are but different configurations of the same molecules. Both love and hate are passion, and passion is a volatile chemical compound. Flick a single spark at it and it will ignite, hungry and uncontrolable. It consumes everything, and it takes and takes and never, ever gives. Passion is insanity, it obeys no master.

In the end, it is the sparks flung up from a burning village, the blood smeared across his vision, the blood smeared down a prisoner’s face that ignite his passion. Sparks and blood, passion and compassion and poison, combine to fuel the inferno that consumes FN-2187.

This is what Finn discovers: a world that is more than black and white and chrome. A world that breathes and that releases its breath in laughs, in sighs, in screams and in song. A world that pulses and – yes – that bleeds, because it is alive. A world of blood reds, and sky blues, and sand yellows and forest greens. And of brown eyes.

This is what Finn fears: that his hands that have been shaped by the grip of a blaster do not know how to touch without damaging. That a body that has turned automaton, that has been taken apart and put back together with metal and glass, doesn’t remember how to be soft, how to hold without crushing, how to give instead of taking. That, if left unchecked, the thing inside his chest will spread out and consume, hungry enough to drain an entire sun. A star-killer.

This is what Finn learns: love is not poison It is an antidote against the numbness and apathy of a lifetime, of countless lifetimes. Passion is not insanity, it is the only thing keeping him sane. When the world rages and churns around him, when the very fabric of the universe seems to curdle under the ugly glare of war. Passion is the only thing keeping him sane and whole and clear-minded. The Force that stitches the galaxy together is equal parts love and passion and compassion, the Jedi be damned.

This is what Finn feels: touches that are rushed not out of fear of discovery, but out of barely contained longing and need. That are searing hot, but don’t leave scorch marks. That grasp with the strength of a drowning man, but don’t bruise. Passion that burns, bright and wild, but that also gives – warmth, life, comfort – like a sun. Words whispered warm and wet and shivering against his lips, and jaw, and neck. Slow down, it’s okay, stay here, right here, please, stay.


End file.
